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| Rosslyn Chapel in the noon day sun. Click for more photos. |
It was a beautiful day to go daytrippin' and use the last day of my bus pass. The weather dutifully led me to Roslin, Scotland, to the Rosslyn Chapel, of the Knights Templar fame.
No, I did not see Tom Hanks, nor do I have any insights for the folks digging at Oak Island (which I'd just like to add is also an island in N.C.).
But, yes, I can attest to the words David Roberts spoke in 1842:
"There is a combination of light and shade I have never met with any subject, colour and richness of detail peculiar to itself."
He, of course, was talking as a painter, and today I can only talk in words.
I actually appreciated that the Rosslyn Chapel Trust has a strict no-photos policy for the inside of the chapel, so you can enjoy the ornate, yet compact, space without tens of people's flashes going off the whole time. Although I do not take photos inside of churches as a personal taboo, I even would have taken some today.
There is so much to see on the inside that you could spend days in there and still see some new detail (this was probably the best book I saw in the gift shop about the symbology, if you're curious). There is a curious mix of meaning in the stone carvings and I wonder, as those who've come before me, what the St. Clair clan was thinking. More than 100 green men peek out of the corners and from next to angels.
But, these photos will have to suffice as a glimpse of the picturesque countryside chapel (and a stately churchyard yew, Taxus baccata).
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